Another Castle combines classic platforming gameplay with the randomness of a rouguelike. You play as Andy, a kid who's looking for a random item, whether it be a kick ass magical sword, a wizard hat, or royalty. To find the item you must run, jump, and fight your way through a randomly generated castle. When you beat the game, you sadly won't get the item, as it's always in another castle. Instead, the item is now unlocked and can be found in future playthroughs of the game.

Version 0.3 is out now, and is also the first publicly available version of the alpha. You can buy it, as well as try out a free web version at AnotherCastleTheGame.com

I’m excited about this release because I now have the basic skeleton of the game in place, and with future updates I can focus primarily on making the game fun, adding crazy stuff, and just generally fleshing out the game. From this point on I should also be able to make more frequent updates, ideally every 2 - 4 weeks as opposed to every few months.

The Soundtrack

Since this is a random game, I’ve decided it would be fun to have a few different composers contribute tracks to create a more varied sound throughout the game.

I’m excited to announce that the first composer for the soundtrack is Magnus “Souleye” Pålsson. Magnus made the music for VVVVVV, which is quite honestly my favorite video game soundtrack of all time, so I’m really happy to have him on board. He’s created four tracks for the game which are all in version 0.3, and I especially love the funky titular track “Another Castle”.

Overworld

This update adds a basic overworld to the game. Right now the overworld is the same every time you play, but in the future I’ll be making it random. You can walk around levels in the overworld which probably doesn’t make a lot of sense right now, but in future updates I’ll be adding random encounters and other things to encourage you not to skip levels. I want going off the path to become a high risk / high reward, as well as quite surreal, strategy.

Castle Levels

0.3 also adds castle levels to the game. With the Castle levels I now have all three basic level types added to the game, Outside, Cave, and Castle. While Outside and Cave levels can be found anywhere in the overworld, Castle levels are only found right now at the last two levels of the game.